“You must always accompany each meal with some veggies, girls!” Mum would tell us over the dinner table as she watched us serve. As I looked at mum, towering over me and heaping veggies on my plate,the then six year old me never saw the importance. I took the plate, but as soon as she turned her back, I returned a huge chunk back to the serving dish. Years later, I got to appreciate all the veggies mum makes at home, particullarly traditional veggies. In high school, all we had were cabbage and kale. This made me miss all the wholesome, wide variety and bountiful flavor traditional veggies offer. Nowadays, I eat traditional veggies 99% of the time. They are actually very much easily available in the city if you are just observant enough. Today, savor my creamed garlic kunde, a recipe from my mama bear :))
Kunde are the leaves of cow peas sprouts. They are quite large, making the plucking process very fast. compared to other traditional veggies that have very small leaves.
Serves: 7 Prep time: 5 minutes Cook Time: 20 minutes
Kunde Ingredients
1 kg of kunde, picked and boiled
2 red onions, chopped
2 cloved of garlic, minced
1/4 size of thumb sized garlic
1/2 greed bell pepper, finely chopped
1 cup of cream
Method
Pick the leaves and put them to boil. Boil them until they are tender. If you have some sherekha, add a tablespoon or two to tenderize it and add plenty of flavor.
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Kunde has a tendancy of being really chewy. To counter this, choose bunches that are younger i.e have smaller leaves which are more tender. Another tip is to boil them with Munyu Musherekha. Wipe that WTH look off your face as I explain LOL
Sherekha is a salt which also doubles up as a tenderizer widely used by Luhya people to add flavor and make everything softer or more tender. It is made from the ashes of sun-burned dried bean pods or sun-dried matoke peels. The ash is then put in a tin with some water and left undisturbed. The water drains through the perforated tin without debris but contains a lot of the sought after sour taste.
The resultant liquid is the musherekha. To tenderize, our kunde (and kienyeji kuku and sometimes meat too), we boil it with it. It is not compulsory, but makes a world of difference when used.
So how can you make your kunde less chewy if you do not have musherekha? Mix them with some spinach.
*****
Put the diced onion, diced hoho and the minced garlic and ginger to cook with some oil. Add some salt as per your preference and let these sautee until they soften and become aromatic.
Add the boiled kunde and allow it to simmer on medium high heat for 3-5 minutes.
Then lastly, add the cream and mix it in. Let this simmer for about 4 minutes them serve.
If you give me the option of having ugali+cabbage or ugali+any taditional vegatable, I will always choose the latter. They are fuller in flavor and alot richer and tastier. Throw in some garlic fish curry or kuku kienyeji and you will never have enough child!
If you are yet to try out trad veggies, I have no idea what you are waiting for. You can start out by giving this a try :)). Slowly, I will introduce you to the many others we enjoy.
Happy Friday!
-K
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Hey there! My name is Kaluhi and I love food! Through my blog, I am happy to share with you my self-taught recipes, steeped in nostalgia and the happiest of memories. I hope each recipe you try out is as addictive as the previous one and is shared on a table full of love and hearty laughs!
Thank you for the recipe. Green vegetables are the way to go.
http://maishbz.com/
Green veggies are life! And you’re welcome :))
I saw musherekhe, and thought well.. which extinct animal’s kidney has to be ground, lakini kumbe. hehe. My friends tell me they use cooking cream, so to be with ‘it’ I bought it but have never used it. I know the how-to now. Will definitely try this 🙂
Hey Sophie,
The use of Musherekha is not too well known, but once discovered, it is nearly impossible not to always use it all the time. My gorgeous aunty who is from Central Kenya first used to think musherekha is some weird witch craft from Western (LOL) but once we showed her its goodness and how to incorporate it into food, she is HOOKED!!!! Anyway, glad to have you as part of the KK Fam :)). Hope you try out many more recipes.
Where did you get the cream?
In Tuskys, but you can get it in any supermarket in the dairy section. Anything labelled as Heavy cream.
Good humour! Never heard of musherekha though. I would like to know more coz I just don’t buy that something made from banana pills and water can ever be nice.
What exactly would you like to know? I would be glad to explain :))
Ovhendi mkhana..
Lovely lovely..I have to try this..my mum calls the munyu mukerekha instead of musherekha hehe. I love your blog, I cant seem to leave this page…
Mbe garaha! So glad we can connect over this post. Actually, my dads side say mukherekha while my moms side say musherekha. So I say it both ways. My father actually has a super close pal named chanzu, so who knows miss, one day we could bump into each other in Maragoli 😀
Yeah its good Maragoli connect..i tell you. The bumping could even be here in Nairobi .Maybe ur dads pal is my father lol. I will now be trying a recipe here and leaving my comments on each…where was I all this time seriously..hehe
Nice time
It is a small world, I wouldn’t be surprised if we bumped into each other :))
I know it as mushevano.
Different pronouncation, same amazing ingredient!
Love it！
Where do you find the tenderizer ?
You make it at home. I have just explained how to make it in the post.
Great recipe
Thank you!! I hope you give it a try :))
So nice i feel am gonna try it out on my own
Dope! Let me know how it goes :)))
Thank you for the recipe,
I prepared kunde and got sick
Headaches and stomache
what could be the problem?
The problem must have been with your execution. Was your cream fresh??
I love your article on the preparation of creamed garlic kunde. Just tried it myself and it was really finger licking, I tell you. I’m running a facebook page, creating awareness on the nutritional benefits of sweet delicacies that we can derive from traditional veggies, it’s called Modern Tradition. Would you mind posting related articles on our page?
No, my work is unfortunately (or fortunately) affiliated to only my brand and I cannot post on behalf of your brand since we are not working together.All the best though.
Can i use milk instead of cream?
no